


Without Words

by The_Dancing_Walrus



Series: All else is poor translation [1]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Awkward Romance, Dragon Age Kink Meme, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Elvhen, Explicit Language, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Language Barrier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4638126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Dancing_Walrus/pseuds/The_Dancing_Walrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'“Is this…what you expected?” Alistair hissed while Kallian Tabris stared at the uh…man in front of them and tried to keep her mouth shut. </p><p>She’d said they should go to the Dalish first. And talked about how they were supposed to be the best fighters in the world and knew magic the Circle had never heard of…and it had been a load of rubbish she’d made up on the spot because telling her merry band of followers that she was just curious would have gone down like one of Alistair’s dinners. She hadn’t actually expected them to find anything and she certainly hadn’t expected those doors in the ruin to swing open to a sleeping elf.'</p><p>In which the Warden accidentally wakes up a gen-uine Ancient Elf and things get crazier from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Brecilian Ruins

**Author's Note:**

> So this was a fill for the kink meme prompt below that got a lot longer than I'd planned. 
> 
> 'any/any, ensemble, what could have been.
> 
> essentially what i want is a few little fics of how things could have been if different companions were in different games, eg.
> 
> \+ sara running around in kirkwall, being frenemies with isabella, flirting with merrill/f!hawke
> 
> \+ a younger, slightly less ~aura of mystery~ solas who joins the warden to study the archdemon/the architect
> 
> \+ grey warden!carver hawke who joins the inquisition with/instead of blackwell and hasnt seen/heard from his sibling since kirkwall and is s u p e r p i s s e d at varric
> 
> \+ alistair who stays a templar and ends up at kirkwall or runs off and still ends up in kirkwall and generally makes an ass of himself but everyone (except fenris and sebastian probably) loves him OR found by leliana during inquisition and used as a power play (maybe)'
> 
> The Elven is generally based on Hindi or Sanskrit if it's not from the game. Chapter lengths vary.

“Is this…what you expected?” Alistair hissed while Kallian Tabris stared at the uh…man in front of them and tried to keep her mouth shut.

 

She’d _said_ they should go to the Dalish first. And talked about how they were supposed to be the best fighters in the world and knew magic the Circle had never heard of…and it had been bullshit she’d made up on the spot because telling her merry band of followers that she was just curious would have gone down like one of Alistair’s dinners. She hadn’t _actually_ expected them to find anything and she certainly hadn’t expected those doors in the ruin to swing open to a sleeping elf.

 

He yawned, propped himself up on his elbows and stared at them. He was pale, taller and broader than most of the elves in the Alienage with these striking blue-grey eyes. If he’d been younger and still had his hair she might have called him handsome-

 

Then again she might have been kinda distracted by finding him alive in a sealed tomb, under a layer of dust, dressed in uh…..well they’d probably _once_ been clothes but it looked like they’d rotted off while he slept-

 

“Aneth ara.” He said composed and friendly, as if he hadn’t just woken up pretty much naked surrounded by armed strangers, oh Maker this was gonna be a world of trouble she could just _feel_ it-

 

“What did he say?” Alistair whispered.

 

“How should I know?!” Kallian hissed back which ended with them all turning to Leliana who looked just as blank.

 

“Ummm hello? Are you alright?” Leliana tried before running through all the languages she knew.

 

They all won her equally confused looks. Wonderful-

 

“What do you intend to do with him?” Morrigan enquired.

 

Trust her to cut right to the point. Kallian sighed.

 

“We can’t leave him here.”

 

“And you think bringing him out to face the werewolves preferable?” Morrigan asked.

 

“We should at least get him some clothes-” Alistair pointed out.

 

In the pause that followed the poor sod sat up, brushed the dust off his head and tried to ask them all something. Kallian ignored him in favour of rummaging through Leliana’s pack for anything that had a half-chance of fitting. They found him some trousers, which he put on, and some boots, which he looked at like they were Darkspawn heads and gave back.

 

“Right,” She took a deep breath and began slowly. “I’m Kallian Tabris. I’m a Grey Warden. Can you tell me- no actually scratch that, wait. Leliana? Have you still got that shield with the Warden’s emblem on it I gave you? Brilliant sling it here.”

 

She propped it in front of her, pointing from the emblem to herself because everyone knew about the Grey Wardens right?

 

“You’re safe.” She enunciated. “We’re Grey Wardens.”

 

She was pretty sure that somewhere behind her Morrigan was rolling her eyes. But the man was nodding so that was-

 

“Ma serannas, Yali.”

 

Of course she still couldn’t understand a word he said. He repeated her gestures, pointing to himself and then the dogs- wolves carved onto the tomb. Which meant…errrrr.

 

“Oh! He thinks it’s your name!” Leliana realised. “The Griffin. And his is…‘Wolf’?”

 

“Charming.” Morrigan sighed. “Are we to stay here prattling until the beasts descend on us all?”

 

They didn’t have time to march all the way back to the Dalish, so they gave him a couple of daggers and dragged him along. Which admittedly probably wasn’t the _best_ plan in the whole world but it hadn’t worked out too badly with the rest of them so far.

 

-

 

And it was a damned good thing they had brought him along because the Maker only knew how the meeting with the Lady of the Forest would have gone otherwise. As it was the spirit had got half way through explaining that the werewolves weren’t the people who’d originally been cursed when their own ‘Wolf’ had stepped forward.

 

He’d wandered right up to her, shrugging off Alistair’s hand when the Templar had tried to pull him back. And for a horrible second Kallian had been sure that Swiftrunner would slit the idiot’s throat and that would be the end of that.

 

Instead the Lady had smiled, sudden and sincere and thrown her arms around his neck like a wife greeting a husband who’d been away at war-

 

They both spoke, fast and it was all so bizarre that it took the rest of them a good minute to stop gawking long enough to get to the pertinent point which was clearly-

 

“By Andraste’s flaming knickers what the fuck is going on here?”

 

“He is a friend,” The spirit replied serenely. “He came to this forest when it was young: he can break the curse-”

 

And he had.

 

There’d been some kind of golden light, which Kallian was guessing meant that Wolf was a mage but other than that she didn’t have a clue what he’d done. Only that when the light cleared the Lady was gone and a bunch of dazed looking humans and elves were milling around where the werewolves had been.

 

Wolf had turned and smiled at them like it was the most normal thing in the world. And she knew it had given Alistair a turn but really what was there to complain about? They could go back and tell the Dalish the werewolves were all gone, which was true. They’d skipped what had looked to be a really horrendous fight-

 

The only downside was that the Dalish Keeper had apparently gone missing in the ruins trying to follow them, but that was hardly their fault.

 


	2. The West Road

Wolf hadn’t taken much to the Dalish, so they’d brought him back to camp.

 

“Are we _really_ taking him along as well?” Alistair asked from over the cooking pot. “Because I know we’re desperate but he can’t understand a word we’re saying. And he might be a mage but that doesn’t mean he can fight.”

 

“My Mother knew some stories of the Ancient Elves.” Morrigan volunteered, staring at the fire. “They were supposedly immortal mages powerful enough to level cities with their spells.”

 

Kallian had glanced over at Wolf and tried to imagine him levelling the Arl’s Palace back home. It was a little difficult when he looked like he was still trying to get tomb-dust out of his ears.

 

“They could allegedly fall into a form of a trance,” Morrigan continued in her measured tone. “A deep sleep wherein they walked the Fade. Sometimes for thousands of years.”

 

“So you’re saying baldy here might be older than Andraste?” Alistair said doubtfully.

 

“I am saying,” Morrigan replied testily. “That he may never have heard of Darkspawn, may not be aware of ‘Blights’ and likely has no concept whatsoever of modern society.”

 

Alistair dropped his spoon and it disappeared into the thick grey paste he claimed was stew with a ‘spluck’ sound.

 

“Well that’s just GREAT-” Alistair fumed and he looked so adorably frustrated Kallian couldn’t help smiling.

 

“I’m sure he’ll pick it all up fast.” She said quickly. “I mean it can’t be that hard to learn Common, everyone does. And I figure Darkspawn will be pretty easy to explain once we’ve run into a few.”

 

“And you think he’ll choose to support the Grey Wardens out of the goodness of his heart?” Morrigan suggested sarcastically.

 

Kallian shrugged. “Those treaties we’ve got? Aren’t half those people usually trying to kill each other? And we got support from all of them in the past, not just for us but that they’d work together. Blights do that to people. You pull together or else everything gets swept away. If you can get Dalish marching beside shem because of that I’m sure we can convince him.”

 

They both looked doubtful but they’d been doubtful about Leliana too. She looked over at Wolf again, staring at the Qunari as if he’d never seen one before. He didn’t look like trouble now, then again he didn’t look like he was hiding enough power to cure an army of werewolves either.

 

She shrugged. “Eh, if he wants to leave he’s free to. It’s not like we couldn’t use more firepower.”

 

And if he really hadn’t been out of that tomb in a few thousand years he was likely in for a shock or two. Some of which might have ended up fatal-

 

She sighed and wondered how Shianni was getting on back home. And Soris come to think of it. They wouldn’t have liked it if she’d abandoned a foolish elf to the woods or worse, mage or not. She’d find a way to work around the….. difficulties eventually.

 

Then supper came and the look on Wolf’s face when he saw Alistair’s culinary efforts neatly broke the language barrier.

 

-

 

They found out Wolf could actually fight by blundering into an ambush on the way to Redcliffe.

 

It had been a _bad_ one too, or could have been. Outnumbered, a fallen tree blocking their escape route and two rows of archers on the cliffs firing down on them.

 

It was only after they’d taken down the bastard bandit’s bastard mage that she’d noticed they hadn’t all been turned into pincushions. She glanced quickly up at the cliffs and the archers were firing but-

 

There was some kind of weird shimmering thing, like a wall raised between them.

 

And Kallian would have admired it only she was a fan of not getting stabbed to death.

 

She weaved around another dagger-wielding nut to come up beside Alistair and shank the assassin behind him in the knee. She tried to keep going, staying out of their reach, striking hard and fast and then dancing away. Occasionally she’d catch bright blue-white flashes around her which looked pretty similar to the cold spells Morrigan threw about.

 

And when the dust and flickers of ice cleared they’d _won_. She should really have learnt to stop being surprised by that after surviving the Arl’s Palace and Ostagar.

 

Wolf leaned on his borrowed staff and watched while she and Leliana went through their enemies pockets. He shifted a bit when they found a live one though.

 

Kallian had planned on questioning him, maybe handing him over to the Arl when they reached Redcliffe. She _hadn’t_ expected him to volunteer to join them because honestly what kind of second-rate assassin would throw himself at his target’s feet and beg to join up?

 

She could see that just considering it was going to get her an earful from Leliana and Alistair (but maybe he was more annoyed that the assassin had called her a deadly sex goddess?)-

 

And _yes_ the man was an assassin, but he obviously wasn’t that good at it or they’d all have been dead already. More importantly they were trying to sneak across the country and take down one of the most popular and talented generals in an Age with an army of six. Next to a repentant murderer, a half-mad Chantry sister, a Witch of the Wilds, an apostate who couldn’t speak Common and two half-trained Grey Wardens what was a run-away-assassin?

 

Maker’s Breath but her life had gone mad bloody quickly.

 

Alistair had started kicking up a fuss, just as Leliana had started welcoming the Crow aboard. It was like being surrounded by her bloody cousins, everyone always disagreeing and shouting and Kallian sort-of-nominally-in-charge and having to run round between them to make sure no one set the kitchen on fire.

 

Alistair and Leliana had gotten a good way into their argument with the poor dumb Crow at their feet looking back and forth between them when Kallian finally gave up and waded in.

 

“Look Alistair, you want him dead? You can bleeding kill him.”

 

Alistair had backed down fast and Kallian had looked over them all again just in case that wasn’t the last of it… And found Wolf was smirking at them from a few paces away. Kallian groaned.

 

“You gonna argue too?” She asked throwing a sweeping gesture over the assassin as Alistair hauled the poor bastard up. “Or are you just laughing at us?”

 

She didn’t really have any idea why she asked because ‘Yali’ and ‘shemlen’ were the only things he could say she’d understand. He answered anyway, with Elvhen and a broader smile.

 

“Brat.” Kallian muttered.

 


	3. Redcliffe

Redcliffe was being attacked by walking corpses.

 

 _Of course_ Redcliffe was being attacked by walking corpses!

 

And it wasn’t as though she could just leave them to it. Without help they’d all be slaughtered, the handful of knights on the path, the green terrified boys in the square, the women and children huddled in the Chantry-

 

It would have been nice, just once, to walk into a place that wasn’t in the middle of a crisis. May be it was a Grey Warden thing? May be Duncan had spent his youth going back and forth sorting out one disaster after another and that’s how he could get the best recruits from everywhere because all of Thedas owed him a fucking favour.

 

Kallian took a deep breath. And may be, just _may be_ , she was still a little, tiny, teensy bit annoyed that Alistair had decided he didn’t trust her enough to tell her he was _next in line for the fucking throne_ until it was absolutely bloody necessary and-

 

And now she stopped to think about it she had absolutely no idea what Bann Teagan had been talking about or why exactly he was sporting that expression.

 

“Ummm sorry,” Kallian began. “You were saying something about the defences?”

 

“Your…mage friend,” The Bann said dubiously. “What’s he doing to the doors and windows?”

 

Kallian put on the calm, slightly perplexed expression that tended to make stupid guards think she was at least slightly innocent. She turned unhurriedly and-

 

The windows were covered with the same strange shimmer that had cut off the archers during the ambush. The main door was covered in unintelligible symbols. Green, glowing, unintelligible symbols.

 

Because Wolf didn’t know _not_ to cast spells in a Chantry-

 

She resisted the urge put her head in her hands and instead turned back to the Bann with a serene smile.

 

“Protective spells,” She told him confidently. “To stop the monsters getting in. He’s uh…Dalish.”

 

-

 

Over the next couple of hours Kallian discovered three important things.

 

In the middle of a huge, everyone’s-going-to-die-Arling-destroying-crisis, a significant proportion of people would be blind drunk and locked in cellars.

 

It was nearly impossible to communicate the concept of ‘horde of mysterious reanimated corpses’ by mime.

 

When you were planning on staying up to confront the horde of mysteriously reanimated corpses the second point really didn’t matter much.

 

-

 

For the first may be six seconds seeing the Arlessa had been a huge relief.

 

Then she’d started _talking_.

 

And she hadn’t _actually_ called Kallian and Wolf upitty rabbits even if it was practically written on her face when she asked the Bann who these _people_ were-

 

Kallian _might_ have been able to forgive her for that with walking corpses and half the village ravaged and the woman’s husband and son still in danger. Except Arlessa Isolde was an _idiot_.

 

Oooo yes! Most of the Castle’s been slaughtered by a demon so let’s take the last person of any rank into the middle of a den of abominations alone and unarmed! Rather than, oh, rousing the knights or the village or using the band of Ostagar veterans in front of us! Because that was so smart!

 

And obviously that was the entirety of what was getting under her skin: the pretension, entitlement and stupidity of nobles. It didn’t have anything to do with the sad puppy-dog face Alistair had made when he’d mentioned Arlessa Isolde. _Not at all_.

 

Bann Teagan wouldn’t be swayed and at first she thought Isolde’s idiocy was infectious. But then he’d taken her aside, told her about the secret passageway, handed her the key-

 

It wasn’t the _worst_ plan she’d ever heard.

 

So they waited until Isolde was out of sight before sending the knights up to the castle gates and sneaking into the old mill.

 

And may be if they were lucky they could manhandle Wolf into the tunnels before he made too much of a fuss-

 

-

 

They had to fight their way through the dungeons, the servants’ quarters, the guest quarters, the barracks, the main court yard, the Great Hall, a pack of Mabari, a squad of bewitched guards, more walking corpses and at least six separate demons.

 

Not that Kallian was counting or anything.

 

She’d been working up to get properly annoyed about it when the Arlessa had broken down and explained just how much trouble they were in.

 

And left Kallian to decide whether they were going to kill a boy of ten or sacrifice his mother in some sort of unholy blood magic ritual.

 

She glanced at Alistair who looked utterly heartbroken.

 

“There’s got to be a better way.” He said desperately. “There’s got to be-”

 

“If we had a lot of lyrium and more mages may be-” The blood mage said doubtfully.

 

“We could go to the Circle of Magi-” Alistair suggested.

 

“You wouldn’t arrive back in time.” Bann Teagan interrupted grimly.

 

Wolf coughed and murmured something unintelligible. Alistair spoke over him.

 

“We have to try!”

 

“What if they’re in as much trouble as everyone else we’ve run into?” Kallian asked as gently as she could.

 

Maker she didn’t want to do any of this, didn’t want to have to choose between mother and son. Especially with their family looking on but-

 

Wolf cleared his throat again and Kallian sighed.

 

“Look now is not a good time-”

 

She turned around anyway. Wolf spoke clearly and emphatically enough for her to pick out words, ‘da’len’ and ‘ashir’ and ‘era’harel’-

 

Which made as much sense as his equally insistent hand gestures. She took a deep breath and turned away trying to weigh whether-

 

“Warden-” Leliana interrupted.

 

“What?” Kallian snapped.

 

“Do you…remember what Morrigan said?” Leliana began carefully. “The stories about Elven magic her mother had told her?”

 

“I don’t see what-”

 

Kallian stopped.

 

She frowned. Morrigan had said-

 

A deep sleep in which they walked the Fade-

 

Kallian spun to stare at Wolf. He looked as if he was mildly disappointed it had taken her so long to catch up.

 

-

 

They made up a pallet in the Great Hall and waited.

 

And may be it wasn’t the _best_ plan but given their alternatives it had to be worth a try. Unless you were listening to the blood mage of course in which case it was impossible and anyway there was no such thing as Dreamers anymore and even if there was he’d more likely turn into an abomination himself then save the boy and-

 

Kallian would have sent him back down to the dungeons after the first twenty minutes but if Wolf’s suggestion didn’t work it was probably best to have an alternative on hand. Even if practicality wouldn’t sodding shut up.

 

It _was_ making her a lot less scared of blood magic, because if all renegade malificar were such whiny, incompetent cowards then-

 

A child’s voice cried out from the hallway and the Arlessa shot to her feet. Leliana whispered a prayer and Alistair let out a long relieved sigh.

 

The Bann sagged against the wall.

 

And the child, innocent and oblivious broke off telling his mother the dream he’d had of being rescued by a gigantic wolf in order to ask where the servants had gone.

 


	4. The Circle Tower

Getting rid of the demon hadn’t cured the Arl though and the blood mage was incredibly unhelpful on the subject of what exactly the Arl had been poisoned with. And the Arlessa had kept going on about the Urn of Sacred Ashes as if it was actually _real_ and _helpful-_

 

She’d got Wolf to have a look on the off chance he could manage two miracles in one day. But he’d frowned down at the Arl and shook his head.

 

“You just _cured_ an abomination!” Alistair protested, as if Wolf had a chance of understanding more than his desperate tone. “By falling _asleep!_ You must be able to-”

 

“Ma vajra?” Wolf queried and after the inevitable bout of bizarre sign language with Leliana they got him some paper and a quill.

 

He drew a sort of...spherical thing covered in swirling carvings while they all craned over his shoulders to see what he was doing. Then he passed it to Kallian and so they could all crowd round and crane over her instead. She concluded that Wolf needed some kind of weird elven-sphere-thing they didn’t have to help the Arl.

 

Possibly. May be it was Elven writing or his interpretation of Alistair’s family tree.

 

“Any ideas?” Kallian asked.

 

No one had any.

 

“Bugger.” She observed.

 

Still if Wolf thought it was possible to revive Arl Eamon-

 

“Well may be the Circle of Magi’ll know what the hell this thing is.” Kallian mused. “And we’ve got to head that way regardless. May be we should ask them.”

 

-

 

They were a day or two out from the docks that could take them to the Circle Tower when Alistair took her aside.

 

Not that she’d been avoiding him. At all.

 

“Look, I-” He stopped and sighed. “Have you thought about who you’re bringing to the Circle?”

 

“Not really.” She admitted. “Why?”

 

“We’re uh, not exactly a Chantry-friendly bunch.” Alistair pointed out waving a hand over the camp at large. “And the Templars in the Tower are uh-”

 

“Humourless?” Kallian suggested.

 

“That’s one way of putting it.” He agreed. “I just…don’t think they’ll take kindly to most of our new friends.”

 

“We can’t expect the Templars to play nice with the apostates?” Kallian asked sarcastically. “I’m shocked.”

 

“It’s not _just_ them.” Alistair insisted. “I mean look at the others. Zevran’s an _assassin_! We found Sten in a cage because he _murdered_ a whole family!”

 

Which wasn’t something she’d thought about and now that she did-

 

“There’s Leliana-” Kallian suggested desperately.

 

“You mean the mad ex-sister who keeps seeing heretical visions?”

 

Crap.

 

Kallian stared at her companions, thought about how marching them into a tower full of heavily armed Chantry fanatics was likely to end and-

 

_Crap._

 

“Dammit we can’t take _any_ of them!”

 

“Well may be we won’t need to.” Alistair said with a degree of optimism Kallian definitely didn’t share. “We’ve had bad luck everywhere else but the Circle’s neutral, it’s well protected. Loghain wouldn’t have attacked them and he couldn’t recruit them without the Chantry’s support so-”

 

“So it’ll be full of demons or giant spiders or something instead.” Kallian predicted.

 

“I…hope not.” Alistair murmured. “I think I’ve had my fill of abominations.”

 

Kallian sighed. “Sorry. That was- Sorry.”

 

They were silent for a moment. Alistair fiddled with his gloves. Kallian kicked at a few loose stones.

 

“You’re right though.” Alistair said finally. “We probably shouldn’t just go in alone and hope that everything’s alright in there.”

 

Kallian sighed and wondered who would cause the Templars the least offense. The heretic, the murderer, the assassin or the apostates-

 

One of whom was likely to pick a fight with the poor bastards and the other wouldn’t even know he should hide his magic from them.

 

“Fuck it.” Kallian declared. “We’ll take the dog.”

 

-

 

It took a full week to fight their way up the tower and clear out all the demons.

 

A _week_ of slogging through ambush after ambush and getting stuck in nightmares with Alistair, the dog and an extremely worried, extremely _elderly_ mage. While everyone else sat around on the Lake shore.

 

Leliana said she’d _sunbathed_.

 

She’d also taken the time to try and teach Wolf a little bit more Common.

 

His favourite word was ‘why’.

 


	5. Orzammar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone on the kink meme suggested the title of this chapter was actually 'Kallian's life is pain'

The trek up to Orzammar was something of a relief after all the werewolves and demons and walking corpses and abominations. Just a couple of bandits and the occasional band of darkspawn.

 

One of them was Wolf’s _first_ band of darkspawn, which Kallian only realised when the rest of them were ready to move on from the cursed things and Wolf was still poking their corpses with the end of his staff.

 

She sighed. “Leliana, can you drag him away from there before he rolls in it or something?”

 

And it might have been a little bit selfish to ask, but Leliana seemed to have a way with him and Kallian really didn’t want to struggle through explaining darkspawn to the poor guy.

 

By the time Leliana reached him Wolf had crouched beside the damn thing. He got out a dagger and looked like he was planning to slice it open before Leliana let out a startled ‘no’ and tugged him back. She turned him round and started to tell Wolf that the darkspawn were tainted, their blood was dangerous, in the same slow, clear, sensible tone that never worked when Kallian used it.

 

Leliana always seemed to be able to tell when he’d actually understood, as opposed to when he’d gotten fed up of listening to Common or decided that whoever was talking was spouting rubbish he didn’t actually need to pay attention to.

 

And the Common didn’t seem to be sinking in at all this time. As soon as Leliana stepped back Wolf tried to get back to the darkspawn carcasses.

 

“No, no!” Leliana exclaimed for the tenth time. “They are tainted they-”

 

She stopped, dug into her pack and produced a bottle of deathroot extract which she held up for Wolf’s inspection.

 

“The blood,” Leliana told him, gesturing from the drying pool around the target of Wolf’s curiosity to the bottle. “Is _poison_.”

 

It finally seemed to sink in. Wolf frowned thoughtfully and nodded once. Leliana treated him to a relieved smile.

 

“Thank you.” Wolf said seriously, in his oddly accented interpretation of Common.

 

He held out his hands in what looked like an apology of sorts. Leliana took them, smiling. And Wolf slipped her gloves from her wrists.

 

Leliana gave a small sound of surprise, which Wolf ignored completely. In a moment he’d stepped around her and was beside the genlock again. He pulled Leliana’s gloves on, raised the dagger and had started poking through the genlock’s guts before Leliana had recovered enough to stop him.

 

“He stole my gloves!” She blurted out. “He stole my gloves!”

 

“Thank you!” Wolf replied brightly.

 

And Alistair almost died laughing.

 

-

 

Loghain had men waiting for them at the gates of Orzammar and by that point they’d gone through enough shit for Kallian not to take it personally. Between Alistair, Morrigan and Sten the poor bastards didn’t even last long enough to be a decent road-block.

 

The dwarf at the gate was kind enough to warn them about Orzammar’s crisis, which put the dwarves one above everyone else they’d encountered so far in Kallian’s book. At least until they’d trekked down through the grand, statue lined entrance and straight into a stern talking-to from the captain of the guard.

 

Best behaviour. They could all do that. Absolutely.

 

-

 

They lasted about three hours. Just enough time to get to Dust Town. And then Wolf started a riot.

 

-

 

“Look I’m _sorry_ ,” Kallian said for the umpteenth time. “I honestly had no idea he could remove those uh…. Face-things. It’s my fault really; I should have kept a better watch on him. He’s uh- _simple_? If you know what I mean. Try talking to him if you don’t believe me. He doesn’t understand a whole lot of words, can’t really speak. Got hit on the head we think. Really sad. I _promise_ not to let him out of my sight again-”

 

Thank the Maker they bought it-

 

-

 

So after she’d wrangled guardsmen and Nobles and the Shaperate and given all of them enough gold to buy half the alienage back home she _finally_ managed to get her people back.

 

Somehow, The Maker’s own hand most likely, they were all unharmed.

 

Good, because Kallian Tabris was going to kill them.

 

“What in Andraste’s name were you _thinking?!_ ” Kallian fumed as she dragged them back out into Orzammar’s main street.

 

Zevran shrugged. Wolf appeared to be sulking. Alistair at least had the decency to look suitably sheepish.

 

“In truth?” Zevran replied, earning a glare from Kallian that could wither a Sylvan. “I was thinking ‘this is an excellent place to slit someone’s throat and relieve them of their coin’.”

 

“Helpful.” Kallian snarled.

 

“Then I was thinking ‘what has become of that handsome Templar and our striking silent mage?’ After which there were a great many axes, daggers- and guards. One of them,” Zevran said in a tone of great scandal. “Almost cut my braids.”

 

Kallian took a deep calming breath and let it out as slowly as she could stand.

 

“Zevran’s right,” Alistair murmured, staring mournfully at his boots. “He didn’t have anything to do with it. I was the one supposed to be watching Wolf. I wasn’t paying enough attention to what he was doing. It’s my fault. Zevran was on the other side of Dust Town when it uh…started. I’m not even sure why they arrested him.”

 

“Being this handsome in a city of dwarves is a very grave crime.” Zevran explained stoically while Kallian put her head in her hands.

 

“You! You-! ARGH!”

 

“You _bastards_!” Kallian declared with considerable feeling.

 

Alistair winced.

 

“What were you _thinking?!_ There’s a BLIGHT going on up there! A proper, full-on, fucking, ARCHDEMON getting ready to RAVAGE the whole of Thedas! The King is DEAD and a _crazy, backstabbing, wittling SHEM_ has taken over and is trying to make sure we all end up IN THE FLAMING VOID!” She exclaimed, gesturing to underline just how thoroughly _screwed_ they were for those that were not paying attention. “Now, is NOT the time to be _pissing about_ in the _arse-end_ of Orzammar!”

 

Zevran sighed. Alistair murmured an apology. Wolf continued to glare at the paving stones and radiate a complete lack of repentance.

 

“You!” Kallian declared pointing squarely at Alistair’s nose. “Know that he CAN’T BE LEFT ALONE! And you!” She whirled on Zevran. “Shouldn’t be WANDERING OFF when you’re someplace EVERYONE’S LIKELY TO GET STABBED!!”

 

“AND YOU!” Kallian yelled, pointing directly into Wolf’s eye just to be sure there was no confusion. “YOU CAN’T UNDERSTAND A FUCKING WORD I SAY BUT MAKER DAMN YOU I _KNOW_ YOU UNDERSTAND THE TONE!!!”

 


	6. The Urn of Sacred Ashes

After the Deep Roads the walk up to Denerim was long, dull and exhausting but it had a wonderful upside: it was almost over.

 

Kallian spent most of the trip imagining how they’d kick Loghain off a reasonably sized tower, unite their dispirit armies, march south, knock the Archdemon’s teeth in and be home in time for her Da’s baked apples. So of course it all went arse over tits again.

 

First of all the Alienage was closed off: which was never a good sign.

 

Then they met Alistair’s Maker-damned-harpy-of-a-sister.

 

Then Kallian made the mistake of popping in to check on Brother Genitivi, just in case-

 

-

 

The senseless slaughter, she could deal with. The lackwit conspirators, not a particular problem. Even the possibility that the _actual_ Urn of Sacred Ashes existed she could cope with- kind of, a bit, if she didn’t think about it too much.

 

Having to trudge all the way back across the country when they’d only just got to Denerim? Not so much.

 

Not on the back of watching all Alistair’s hopes for a family smashed and ground into the dirt. He’d been so happy with them in the Fade’s illusion, she knew he’d wanted it and-

 

And it was possible that sometime over the course of trying to stop the Blight and save Thedas she’d developed a slight crush. A little bit.

 

Which she shouldn’t really have been thinking about. At all. And there were plenty of other things she had to focus on that weren’t Alistair like-

 

“Oh fuck.” Kallian muttered scanning the market place. “Can anyone see Wolf and Leliana?”

 

-

 

“Right.” Kallian took a deep breath. “How far behind you is the mob?”

 

“Mob?” Leliana asked innocently. “There was no mob.” Which might have worked if she hadn’t been blood spattered and her smile had reached her eyes.

 

They weren’t fooling Kallian for a moment. Wolf looked too Maker damned _pleased with himself_ for nothing to have happened. She glared at him then at Leliana who just smiled more widely.

 

Well Kallian had grown up with Shianni and two could play at that game.

 

She reached across and plucked the- it looked like a particularly charred piece of lung- from the edge of Wolf’s collar. She dropped it on the ground at Leliana’s feet and aimed a questioning glance at Wolf.

 

“What’s that?” She enquired and out of the corner of her eye she saw Leliana twitch.

 

“Mmm?” Wolf asked innocently.

 

“That.” Kallian repeated, pointing. “And you know that I know you’re not that dumb. What were you two up to?”

 

Wolf considered this with a mild frown. “Bandits?”

 

“Bandits?” Kallian echoed, utterly unconvinced.

 

“Yes.”

 

She turned to Leliana who didn’t look the least bit surprised. Smart, lying bastards the both of them.

 

“What were you doing away from the market place?”

 

“I found out that an old friend was staying in Denerim.” Leliana replied breezily. “You said that we should not leave Wolf alone so I asked him to accompany me. On the way back we came across…thugs.”

 

It was plausible, she’d give them that. Not that she believed a word of it.

 

“We’re both unharmed Warden.” Leliana assured her and Kallian decided to let it drop.

 

-

 

On the trek south she noticed that Leliana was unusually quiet and seemed…sad.

 

Wolf kept pace with her all the way to Haven and sometimes when Kallian glanced back they were holding hands.

 

-

 

So the last resting place of Holy Andraste, Prophet and Bride of the Maker, had been taken over by a bunch of crazy stab-happy cultists who worshipped a giant fucking fire-breathing lizard.

 

Because that was just how the year was going.

 

May be she shouldn’t have taken Leliana along? Because the combination of stab-happy, High Dragons and religious desecration didn’t seem like it’d be as cheering as Kallian had hoped.

 

Then there were the traps.

 

 _Oh Maker_ there were traps!

 

But then-

 

Then they’d all stepped through the fire into the sanctum, into Andraste’s presence. And it was-

 

It was-

 

The others had all had words. Leliana had murmured awestruck how she’d never even dreamed of seeing the Prophet’s finally resting place. Alistair, Maker bless him, had managed to turn all that wonder into a compliment for _her-_

 

But Kallian couldn’t think of anything to say. She’d stared, mesmerised at the statue, the Urn, taken the whole wonderful moment and buried it deep in her heart. She’d taken a pinch of ash aside for the Arl, as promised.

 

And when Zevran opened his mouth she’d hit him on the head.

 

He’d probably been planning to say something about Andraste’s bosom.

 


	7. Arl Eamon's Palace

It wasn’t all that far back to Redcliffe. Leliana spent most of the walk talking at Wolf about the Urn of Sacred Ashes. He wasn’t even glazing over, so Kallian figured either his Common had gotten a _lot_ better or he had an all-encompassing-sense-destroying preference for red heads.

 

Probably the former cos she couldn’t really imagine any kind of flirting that involved interrupting someone to ask them ‘why’ every three sentences.

 

It was all _so nearly over_.

 

And afterwards-

 

Afterwards she’d figure out what to do about Alistair. About liking Alistair. Liking as in-

 

She was gonna have to come up with a better way of saying it all of course. May be she could give him flowers? Or the Archdemon’s heart? Guys liked that stuff didn’t they?

 

-

 

The problem with that brilliant plan was that the Sacred Ashes of Andraste Bride of the Maker…..worked.

 

Wolf had given them a dubious look but cast some kind of er….magic thing anyway.

 

And the Arl had woken up.

 

For the first couple of hours it had been good. The Arl was grateful for all they’d, all _she’d_ done and Alistair was happy-

 

Alistair was so happy.

 

And Kallian should have been, an _Arl_ had just named her _Champion of Redcliffe_. Maker’s Breath an elf who’d cut down half the palace in Denerim, _Champion of Redcliffe-_

 

She’d listened to the first half of Arl Eamon’s plan to take down Loghain with a smile. They had a shem noble on side, someone who could fight the politics part of it all properly like she never could.

 

And then he’d said he was going to put Alistair forward as King.

 

And Kallian’s smile froze.

 

There had been more, but she hadn’t heard it. She’d smiled, that frozen smile was practically second nature around shems anyway. She’d nodded.

 

She’d excused herself as soon as possible, fled into the nearest empty room and sat on the floor-

 

Alistair was going to be King-

 

-

 

She’d stopped crying by the time Wolf came in. She was holding the locket from the desk in both hands, gently as if it might jump out of her grasp and run away if she startled it. It was a simple little thing. Not pure silver, if the thief in her was any judge. Not particularly skilled craftsmanship either, just Andraste’s Flame, simple as a stamp. A bit a dozen.

 

It had cracked at some point and someone had glued it back together. Carefully.

 

Wolf sighed and sat beside her.

 

“Like you’ll be any help,” Kallian grumbled. “You don’t even know what in the Void this is about.”

 

Wolf put a hand on her shoulder and Kallian sniffled. At least- well he could hardly tell anyone that she was going to pieces over a stupid shem boy. A stupid pretty sweet-

 

“You’ve been asleep for like a million years,” Kallian protested. “You don’t know anything. ‘Specially about shems. And men. And…stuff.”

 

Wolf patted her shoulder. Kallian took a deep, ragged breath and she shouldn’t she really shouldn’t but Wolf couldn’t understand a word of it so-

 

“They’re going to make him _King_. King! And I’m- And then he couldn’t because- And I _really_ like him but he’d be _King_.”

 

Wolf made a vague soothing sort of noise and rubbed small circles on her shoulder. Kallian sighed.

 

“It’s alright for you.” She muttered. “No one’s gonna make Leliana King. You two can go on making big soppy eyes at each other and travelling and going on adventures and murdering random strangers in the capital-”

 

She rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hands and Wolf withdrew a little.

 

She sighed again. “Could you give me a minute? And maybe not tell anyone? Well wave about it at anyone. You know what I mean.”

 

-

 

She’d been there a…while, sitting, staring at the locket when Alistair came in.

 

He shut the door gently behind him and gave Kallian a look, like his whole world had gone crazy too.

 

“I err, Wolf told me I should come and see you.” He started awkwardly.

 

“He told you?” Kallian asked, looking at the locket instead of-

 

“Weeeell, no not really.” Alistair admitted. “He sort of stood there and glared and poked me with his staff until I came down here.”

 

He picked his way across the room and sat a foot or so to her right.

 

“What have you got there?” He asked innocently and she couldn’t-

 

“It’s…yours.” Kallian said, holding it out by the chain. “Your Mother’s. You said- Anyway, it’s yours. Have it.”

 

He took it silently, ran his hands over it and-

 

“This- you’re right.” He murmured finally. “It’s my mother’s amulet. But…fixed. Where did you find it?”

 

Kallian gestured to the desk. Alistair stared at it for a moment.

 

“That’s…this is the Arl’s study. He must have…found it and repaired it, and kept it. Why would he do that?”

 

Kallian shrugged.

 

She didn’t look up and for a while Alistair didn’t say anything.

 

“Thank you. I- I mean it. I thought I’d lost this to my own stupidity.”

 

She shrugged again.

 

“You…remembered me mentioning it?” He sounded surprised by the idea. “I’m er, more used to people not really listening when I go on about things.”

 

“Of course I remembered.” Kallian huffed. “You’re- You’re special to me alright?”

 

It startled a smile out of him. “Is this the part where the music starts and we begin dancing?”

 

She punched his shoulder and Alistair actually laughed.

 

“I’m game.” He declared. “Where are the minstrels?”

 

And that started _her_ giggling and then-

 

Somehow they’d gotten a lot closer and she was looking up into his eyes, close enough to see that he’d missed a spot shaving in the morning and-

 

“I don’t want you to be King.” Kallian blurted out.

 

His face fell and that, that was the famous Tabris charm at work again. She’d ruined it. She should have-

 

“I don’t want me to be King either.” Alistair murmured.

 

They didn’t talk about how the Arl knew best how to depose Loghain or how they could barely fight the Blight let alone a civil war or how they might not have a choice.

 

They held each other and for the moment that was enough.

 


	8. The Arl of Denerim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter update today because my viva's this afternoon and, pass or fail, I am unlikely to be sober afterwards. Wish me luck.

The trudge back to Denerim was just depressing. Because they weren’t really anything and now they probably weren’t ever going to be and-

 

They avoided each other. Alistair had stuck with Wynne. Kallian had tried walking with Sten, but that just made her feel worse. Zevran wouldn’t have been any help unless she wanted to screw him. And Leliana and Wolf were hanging back, talking in a mix of Common, Orlesian, Elven and mime-

 

They kept _smiling_ and laughing at each other. It was starting to make Kallian feel sick.

 

“I hate the world.” She told Morrigan and the witch laughed.

 

-

 

They had one night in Denerim, _one Blighted night_ , before the next crisis hit. Although this time the crisis came in the form of a well-dressed elven servant rather than darkspawn or shambling corpses or demons or mad Paragons or werewolves or-

 

“Ah, Warden!” The Arl exclaimed. “I trust you slept well?”

 

And then he started explaining who the woman was, like she couldn’t do it her own damned self, and then they started talking nobles and politics and-

 

Maker, Kallian was fed up of shems, nobles and politics.

 

She let Erlina get a fair way through it before deciding she couldn’t stand listening to the who-was-murdering-and-framing-who anymore.

 

“You want me to rescue the Queen.” Kallian interrupted. “And she’ll help us?”

 

“Ah- yes,” Erlina promised and she looked like she wanted to say more but Kallian really didn’t intend to let her.

 

“From the Arl of Denerim’s palace?”

 

“I- realise it may be difficult,” Erlina began, “But I have-”

 

“Naw,” Kallian interjected with a dismissive wave. “It’s a piece of piss. Two men and a decent dagger you can take out most of the garrison.”

 

From the looks on their faces the Arl hadn’t heard that one but Erlina definitely had. She probably should have been properly ashamed or something but then again it was starting to look like she’d be the first elf in history to kill two Arls in quick succession.

 

May be it was habit forming?

 

-

 

Erlina fluttered her eyelashes at the guards and got them all in, with new shiny uniforms that didn’t have many suspicious bloodstains at all.

 

They walked all the way through, easy as that, and Maker’s Breath if they’d known in the Alienage that all you needed was a uniform and a hat that covered your ears someone would have shanked the Arl sooner.

 

So of course the Queen’s cell door had been sealed with magic, she should have seen it coming really.

 

“Should have sodding brought Wolf.” Kallian grumbled to no one in particular.

 

The mage would most likely be at Arl Howe’s side, the Queen had said, because of course he would where else would he bleeding be?

 

“Alistair,” Kallian started as they headed down towards the dungeons after whoever it was they were supposed to kill now. “Hypothetically, if you get made a Grey Warden for a, uh, crime the first time you get caught and you do it again, what happens?”

 

-

 

They had to fight their way through the dungeons which had actually become a little predictable and a bit boring by that point. Rescuing tortured prisoners was new and according to one of the shem nobles would really help them against Loghain when it came to the Landsmeet.

 

Which hadn’t occurred to Kallian but they needed all the help they could get so-

 

She probably should have been paying a bit more attention to what was actually happening instead of think about the last time she’d been down there.

 

It was pretty much the same actually. A few more guards, a couple of mages, less Soris and no horrible gut-eating anxiety about Shianni.

 

Then they killed Arl Howe.

 

Two Arls in a year. May be she should make a score card?

 

-

 

And that was how they rescued the Queen.

 

Except then they walked right into pretty much all of Loghain’s men.

 

All the ones that could fit in the Arl’s front room anyway.

 

And they could have tried fighting, only there was no guarantee they’d be able to protect the Queen and Wynne was looking really tired and whatever that mage had done to Sten’s arm didn’t look like it was going away anytime soon and-

 

Crap.

 

Well it wasn’t like this hadn’t happened to her before. And she’d walked out ok the last time. Plus these guards must have been thicker than pigshit if they _didn’t_ recognise their Lord’s daughter the _Queen of Fereldan_ just because she’d tied her hair up and put on a funny hat.

 

So she put her hands up and surrendered, said it was all her fault just like the last time with Soris-

 

Poor bastards, it was hard not to feel a little bit sorry for them as they started taking her and Alistair away.

 

After all she’d gotten a _lot_ better at shanking her way through castles worth of guards in the last few months.

 


	9. Fort Drakon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So in case anyone's interested, I passed. But my examiners and my supervisor apparently have opposite views on how my thesis should have been written. So I need to rewrite the damned thing. 
> 
> Seeing as the combo of stress, caffiene and stuck-in-front-of-keyboard has previously resulted in fanfic this is probably good news for you guys. XP
> 
> Hope you enjoy the fic

 

Unfortunately the guards in charge of Fort Drakon were a bit more astute than the ones in charge of guarding Loghain. Which was how Kallian ended up unconscious.

 

-

 

She woke cold and uncomfortable with a weird fuzzy sort of feeling. She struggled to her feet and staggered towards the door that loomed ahead and-

 

“Oh you’re awake!” A familiar voice said. “I was starting to worry.”

 

She turned around and found Alistair propped artistically in one corner.

 

In his smalls.

 

Kallian’s mouth went suddenly and explicably dry. Maker he had a lot of muscles and- and hair! Small curly pale hairs over the centre of his chest as well as uh _lower._ Not that she was looking at that. She was definitely not looking at that. It was just that his thighs were so um…shapely-

 

Then Alistair stood up and that really didn’t help her coherence much at all.

 

He was just so tall. And muscled. And strong. And pretty. And-

 

And they were in a jail cell weren’t they?

 

Kallian coughed and tried to focus on Alistair’s _eyes_.

 

“Are you uh, all right?” She asked awkwardly.

 

If those shems had hurt Alistair she was going to open their bellies and strangle them with their own guts.

 

“I’ve been worse.” He replied with a shrug. “I’ll be better when we get out of here.”

 

“Right.” Kallian said slumping against the bars. “Gimme a minute-”

 

Alistair sat beside her.

 

“Hey friend,” Someone called out, from behind her which meant the next cell- “What’d you do?”

 

She twisted and found there was another practically-naked-man. Wonderful, her Da would have a fit-

 

“You already asked me that!” Alistair protested.

 

“Yeah and you spouted some guff about Grey Wardens so you’re obviously not the brains of the outfit.” The prisoner wandered closer and he really wasn’t half as easy on the eyes as Alistair, all beard and belly and bruises.

 

“Come on, friend.” He cajoled. “What was it?”

 

“Killed Rendon Howe,” Kallian sighed. “And uh the one before him. And a lot of guards.”

 

The prisoner huffed a laugh. “Who calls that a crime? That’s practically a public service. Still, they’ll hang you for it.”

 

“We’re getting out of here.” Kallian declared, scowling at the ceiling.

 

“Good luck with that!” The stupid probably-right shem chuckled. “I’d expect the Maker to come down here and sing us a sea chanty first!”

 

She tried to get up again and made it about half way before her head swam. Kallian sat heavily and Alistair shot her a worried look.

 

“We _are_ getting out of here.” Kallian insisted. “Just as soon as I get my breath back.”

 

The prisoner snorted. “And I’m the Queen of Antiva.”

 

Alistair twisted enough to glare at him. “Can you kindly shut up?”

 

The prisoner chuckled again but she heard him backing away. She leant back until her head was resting against the bars and breathed.

 

“It’ll be fine,” Alistair reassured her. “Leliana will come for us, probably Wolf as well.”

 

And then he put his arm around her shoulders, pulled her close and and-

 

And it wasn’t fucking _fair._

 

“If you-” She started and she couldn’t say it. “We won’t be able to do this-”

 

“I know.” Alistair murmured.

 

He gave her shoulders a quick squeeze.

 

“It’s _stupid_ ,” Kallian fumed. “I mean I know that Ar- that he’s like your Da or something but he is _full of shit_!”

 

“I-yeah, you’re right.” Alistair admitted with a sigh.

 

She relaxed into his arms and he really was as muscley as he looked but also pretty comfy. And he smelt nice and the hair on his chest tickled her nose and-

 

She had to tell him, oh Maker this was going to be a disaster-

“I er- what I mean is I really- as in _really_ \- And I didn’t say anything before because I thought may be _after_ all of this stuff with Loghain and the Blight and the Archdemon and everything we could- Cos then we’d have time and no one would be trying to kill us much only now- And if you’re… _you know_ then we can’t ever and what I mean is I sort of need to know if you-”

 

“I-Kallian-” He swallowed and the silence dragged out too long and she was almost completely sure he was going to tell her she was being a stupid rabbit and she should stop staring at his smalls when-

 

“Yes. I-umm do.” Alistair admitted. “As well. That is.”

 

“Oh Maker’s Breath, kiss already!” The prisoner next door hollered.

 

Kallian twisted round to snarl at the bastard. They’d both started yelling something at him when the guards shouted about intruders.

 

Which made a dumb heckling voyeur seem like may be less of a problem.

 

One of the guards rushed off out of their line of sight but the second didn’t make it that far. There was a sudden rush of ice and cold air holding him in place. He fell with an arrow in his eye.

 

For a while everything went quiet.

 

Then the cell door swung open and Leliana, a mabari at her side, was smiling at them.

 

“Ah, there you are!” She said brightly. “Follow me the Arl is waiting for us.”

 

Alistair dragged himself to his feet grumbling and started shrugging on his armour. Kallian pulled herself up on the bars.

 

“Leliana,” She said carefully as the bard handed her all her stuff back. “Is that the Arl’s dog?”

 

“Oh no.” Leliana replied, patting the creature on the head. “You can turn back now.”

 

There was a whirl of smoke and suddenly Wolf was standing next to her looking inordinately pleased with himself.

 

“You!-” Kallian sputtered because she was in her _smalls_ for Andraste’s sake.

 

Wolf tilted his head to one side and grinned. Kallian, half-dressed but with more than enough sharp pointy things to cause trouble, folded her arms.

 

“Have you been _impersonating_ my dog?” She demanded.

 

Wolf adopted a confused expression and turned towards Leliana.

 

“No.” Leliana insisted.

 

“No.” Wolf repeated.

 

“Stupid lying lovebirds,” Kallian muttered as she buckled up her armour. “Right, which way is out?”

 


	10. The Alienage

The Queen told them there was something wrong in the Alienage as if it was news. Kallian could have told her that a month and a half ago for free.

 

But apparently hearing it from the Queen meant they could actually get in, which was useful. Kallian had wanted to charge straight down there but the Queen wanted to see her and well she was the sodding Queen-

 

She’d expected – Maker’s Breath she was little more than a petty thug from the Alienage she didn’t have a clue what to expect. An earful for killing another Arl may be? Or a patronising pat on the head for helping Queen Anora? Something like that.

 

She certainly hadn’t expected the _sodding Queen_ to ask for her support.

 

She was the Queen! She didn’t need-

 

And then she started talking about doing what was good for Fereldan and suddenly it made sense.

 

“Wait!” Kallian interrupted, “You _don’t_ want Alistair to be King? That’s great!”

 

The Queen looked a little taken aback. “It…is?”

 

“Yeah!” Kallian declared. “It’s _perfect_. I’ll definitely do the- er saying you should be Queen thing! Yes! Thanks your Madge!”

 

She didn’t wait for Anora to reply which was probably punishable by dismemberment but hey if she needed Kallian to make her properly Queen she’d probably wait till she was on the throne first.

 

Alistair _wasn’t_ going to be King! And that meant- it meant-

 

Well she was going to have to find out.

 

-

 

She’d taken Alistair with her because she’d had some crazy idea about introducing him to her Da or something. She’d taken Leliana because she was also taking Wolf and she’d decided to take Wolf in what, retrospectively, was probably a fit of insanity.

 

He….changed the instant they stepped into the Alienage.

 

It occurred to Kallian, belatedly, that the only elves Wolf had seen before this were the Dalish, Zevran and her. The poor bastard had _no idea-_

 

For a moment she could _see_ it sinking in, that this was what elves _were_ now-

 

And then his face set blank.

 

In a better world she’d have been able to stop, take him aside and try to explain things may be. Or just get him back to Arl Eamon’s estate-

 

But Kallian could hear Shianni’s raised voice from half way across the Alienage and Wolf really wasn’t the only elf she knew who could start a Blighted riot at the drop of a hat.

 

-

 

“Cousin, you have no idea…the things that happened after your wedding- I’m babbling aren’t I?” Shianni gave her a smile. “I’m so happy to see you!”

 

She’d been about to tell Shianni the feeling was mutual and may be ask about the crowds and what in the Void was going on but-

 

“Wedding?” Alistair interrupted and he sounded…hurt. “You’re _married?_ ”

 

“I- was betrothed.” Kallian stammered. “The wedding never actually happened.”

 

Which seemed to mollify him a little bit.

 

“Still, you never told me you were betrothed.” Alistair said and she just knew he was going to ask-

 

“What happened?”

 

She glanced at Shianni, who had the exact same look on her face as she’d had when she’d told Kallian’s Da about catching her and Thren behind the shop-

 

“Can we talk about it later?”

 

And then Shianni started telling her about the purge and the plague and the quarantine and how Valendrian and her Da were missing and-

 

“You know what? I’m gonna have a look in this ‘hospice’-”

 

She got one of Shianni’s quick, sharp smiles for her trouble.

 

“I knew you’d do something, Cousin!” She said, confident and beaming.

 

And, because she knew exactly what Kallian doing ‘something’ usually meant-

 

“Maker watch over you.”

 

-

 

Turns out the guards at the hospice weren’t that smart because they fell for an over-enthusiastic cough and the kind of wheedling ‘but I’m so sick’ act that’d get you fired from the docks in five seconds flat.

 

Inside were are people in cages.

 

People in _cages_.

 

Also one of the guards might have recognised her but it didn’t really matter because Kallian had already decided to stab them all and deal with the bodies later.

 

-

 

They’d had a piece of paper inside talking about ‘shipments’ and ‘males and females’ as if they were animals.

 

And they’d taken Valendrian. And they’d taken her Da.

 

It took about a minute of whispering with Shianni to figure out how you could smuggle a bunch of people from the hospice to the docks. It was a bit like the wedding really: she didn’t think about what might happen afterwards and held on to the tight, cold feeling in her chest.

 

They trooped through the apartments and after acting like a Tabris at one of the residents they got some more directions.

 

There were guards in the alleyways which probably meant they were on the right track. They cut through them either way-

 

There was an elf in the last building, a pack of guards around her and Kallian paused just long enough to find out the bitch was one of the Vint vermin before putting a dagger through her eye-

 

And then-

 

The room was pretty big, lined with cages full of people she recognised. Lots of armed men and a mage at the heart of it. The sort Kallian had started to think only really existed in stories, a high-and-mighty Vint who looked like he thought he was the most dangerous thing in the room, surrounded by slaves. If blood magic had a smell he’d have reeked of it, even his beard looked evil-

 

He stepped forward like he wanted to _talk_ about this, the same way Vaughan had. As though _anyone_ would stop to parley with the people who had their family bleeding on the floor-

 

She was about to tell the bastard where exactly he could shove it when Wolf slipped past her.

 

And the room was swallowed in ice.

 

-

 

Da was fine. They’d…taken Valendrian but Da was fine so she clung to that.

 

None of the people in the cages were badly hurt and their families were happy to see them-

 

She tried not to think about all the people in the gathering crowds watching for someone who was already gone. She should have found a way into the Alienage earlier: she’d _known_ something was wrong months ago when they’d checked on Brother Genitivi-

 

No one seemed to care about that though. They were either muttering about how they were going to end up suffering for a reckless, bloodthirsty Tabris again or showering her with praise.

 

Da couldn’t stop telling her how _proud_ he was.

 

They’d all ended up at home, with as many family and friends as they could fit inside and Shianni threatened to cook while Da pulled up the floor boards making a right mess until he found another old weapon of Mum’s. The prettiest damn dagger Kallian had ever seen.

 

They stayed for dinner even though the floor didn’t really go down again and everyone liked Leliana better than Alistair but it was probably as close to approval as she was going to get for running off with a human Grey Warden who was also a royal bastard.

 

They got through a _lot_ of Alarith’s wine.

 

And at some point during it all Wolf had slipped out. By the time she noticed Leliana was gone too-

 

Alistair was off in a corner with Soris, Alarith and Da, which meant he was probably getting some sort of traditional threat of dismemberment reserved especially for mixed race relationships. He’d probably be safe enough for the ten minutes it’d take to look for the others-

 

-

 

She found them under the Vhenadahl. Leliana had an arm around his shoulder and Kallian couldn’t see his face in the gloom but it was pretty obvious he was miserable.

 

She couldn’t really blame him for that.

 

She must have been pretty distracted, wondering whether she should go over or not, because Shianni almost snuck up on her.

 

“Who is he? I mean, I know Uncle Cyrion said he helped saved them all from the Magister but…he’s a mage and he doesn’t talk and through the whole party he’s had this look, like he was at his mother’s funeral.”

 

“It’s sort of…complicated.” Kallian admitted.

 

“Is he an apostate?” Shianni asked, offering her a glass of…whatever they’d scrounged up now.

 

Kallian shrugged and took the booze. “I guess? I’m pretty sure he’s never been in a Circle.”

 

“Why’s he so sad?”

 

Kallian sighed. “I don’t think he’s ever seen an Alienage before.”

 

“You _found_ the Dalish?” Shianni whispered, which was a fair assumption but-

 

“No, well yeah but- He’s not Dalish. I just sort of…found him and he’s helped so-”

 

“But he’s _never_ seen an Alienage before?” Shianni said wonderingly. “Where’s he from?”

 

“I dunno.” Kallian replied. “I think-”

 

She trailed off because it didn’t really seem right to say it, like that would somehow make it more real or-

 

Under the Vhenadahl Leliana hugged him tighter.

 

“You know how Valendrian had those stories? About how long ago we had our own Kingdom? I- I think he’s from there.”

 

Shianni snorted. “What so he just stepped out of the past from a magical elven paradise where everyone lives forever and has enough to eat and there are no humans at all?”

 

“Yeah.” Kallian whispered.

 

“Oh.”

 

Kallian drank. After a few moments silence so did Shianni.

 

“I uh- think may be you should just tell the others he’s Dalish.” Kallian suggested.

 

“Good idea, Cousin.” Shianni agreed.

 


	11. The End

After all that work the Landsmeet was a bit disappointing. Everyone had talked about it as if it was big and important, as if taking Loghain down would be the hardest thing Kallian had ever done.

 

They all got led into a fancy main hall with the balconies all packed with nobles and boot-lickers. And Loghain finally came out to face them, a pack of guards behind him.

 

Loghain accused her of trying to grab the throne for Orlais. So Kallian told him to open his Maker-damned eyes because if he hadn’t sodding noticed there was a fucking Blight outside.

 

Then Loghain said the Grey Wardens were all cowards hiding behind stinking Orlesian Chevaliers. So Kallian called him a greedy shem who’d been selling half the Alienage to Tevinter.

 

Loghain said the elves were dying of the plague anyway, that the Alienage was such a shit hole they’d have a better life in Tevinter and mentioned that Kallian might have maybe killed two Arl’s of Denerim. So she called him a lying goat-loving bastard who’d sent a blood mage to murder Arl Eamon.

 

Essentially there was a lot of shouting until Anora came in and basically said the same thing as Kallian only in more polite language.

 

Then there was more shouting, about who was supporting who and it turned out that maybe Loghain wasn’t all that popular anymore. He rambled a bit about how Orlais was coming to invade and everyone else was a stinking coward and then they had to fight.

 

For some reason. Kallian wasn’t a hundred percent sure on the details. It felt a little like a fancier version of a late night behind the old leaking pub back home: three drinks in and someone called someone else’s Da a whore and seven minutes of shouted insults later everyone was outside, daggers drawn.

 

Maybe there wasn’t such a huge gap between elves and humans after all.

 

In the end she stepped back and let Alistair do it, just to make sure she hadn’t killed half of Fereldan’s nobility _personally_ -

 

And Alistair ran him through.

 

Arl Eamon made a last ditch attempt to make Alistair King, but Anora wasn’t having any of it and Kallian gave her support as promised.

 

And…that was it. Loghain dead, the country united again, an army to fight the darkspawn with- the only thing left was to kill the Archdemon and after that all their problems would be over.

 

-

 

“You have got to be _fucking joking_.” Kallian snarled at the new Warden, Riodin? Riorden? Something-

 

“So- one of us _dies_?! And that’s the only way we can end the Blight? How the fuck are we supposed to decide something like that!”

 

Alistair put his hand on her shoulder and alright it was possible that she was a teensy bit angry about all this-

 

Riordan had talked calmly and clearly about how he was the eldest so he should be the one to die, but if anything happened to him then…Kallian and Alistair were next in line. They had to do it, only way to kill the Archdemon and if they didn’t the Blight would level Fereldan before the other Wardens could get to it. And everything she’d done to help her family, Alistair’s family, the Circle, the Dalish, the dwarves even, wouldn’t matter anymore.

 

She followed Alistair out into the corridor in a daze. She’d been putting everything off all this time thinking that later- Only later was-

 

“Shit.” Kallian muttered.

 

She should have followed Alistair, gone to talk to him but she’d wandered automatically to her own room instead.

 

And there was Morrigan.

 

Just standing there in Kallian’s room as if she was waiting-

 

“Do not be alarmed. It is only I.”

 

Kallian tried to tell her it’d been a long fucking day and it wasn’t the time. But Morrigan talked over her and she-

 

She had another way. Magic, a ritual. Morrigan was offering to save their lives-

 

Kallian practically fell over herself to say yes.

 

And Morrigan paused.

 

“Truly? I haven’t told you what the ritual involves yet.”

 

“Are you going to kill someone else?” Kallian asked.

 

It’d be a little harder to find someone in desperate need of a stabbing so late….but Zevran had mentioned that one of the men at the market was a Crow-

 

“No.” Morrigan said firmly. “What I propose is this: convince Alistair to lay with me. Here, tonight.”

 

“I’m sorry- _What_?!”

 

-

 

She sat in the corridor across from the room where they were- Where Morrigan was-

 

She didn’t really want to think about it, thinking about it made her feel queasy.

 

So she sat with her back against the wall and her knees pulled up around her and maybe if she bashed her head against her kneecaps hard enough she’d stop fucking thinking about it-

 

“Yali?”

 

His voice was gentle, soft, like he was trying to ask her what was wrong.

 

“Hi Wolf.” Kallian mumbled.

 

He sank down beside her.

 

“I don’t really want to talk about it.” Kallian told him and Wolf made a vaguely reassuring sound which could have meant absolutely anything.

 

“Be alright.” Wolf murmured eventually.

 

“It will be alright.” Kallian corrected.

 

“It will be alright.” Wolf echoed.

 

“Yeah well that’s easy for you to say. You don’t have a clue what’s going on.” She sighed. “Do you even know what they’re _doing_ in there?”

 

“Yes.” Wolf replied and before Kallian could come up with something suitably sarcastic he added, “Magic.”

 

He patted her shoulder consolingly and rose.

 

“Wait,” Kallian called after him. “What did you say?”

 

But he’d already vanished down the corridor.

 

-

 

They spent a few weeks marching back and forth across the country trying to _find_ the sodding Archdemon, which was just miserable.

 

Wolf and Morrigan kept giving each other weird looks, which Kallian probably would have tried to do something about but everything around Morrigan had become so Blighted awkward that she was half wishing they’d kill the Archdemon quick just so Morrigan would _leave_ -

 

-

 

And then they killed the Archdemon.

 


	12. Epilogue: The Conclave

He had vanished shortly after the Archdemon died. So had Morrigan which Leliana assumed to be an apostate’s self-preservation instinct-

 

She didn’t need to guess why Wolf had disappeared.

 

She’d seen his face when they entered the Alienage and when they’d found the caged elves.

 

She dreamed of him sometimes but she did not expect to see him again.

 

It was ten years before she did.

 

-

 

He walks into their chaotic camp shortly after the Conclave explodes. He had a staff in his hand. According to her agents he was completely calm and he surrendered it without a fuss. He told them in perfect, unaccented Common that he wanted to help-

 

He calls himself ‘Solas’ now.

 

She’s not entirely surprised that he’s reappeared now of all times: a magical catastrophe, demons falling from the sky and their best chance of peace torn to shreds- it seems…fitting.

 

She has a single witness. A single, unconscious, _dying_ witness, bound to the hole in the sky, marked in a way that should be impossible. Leliana barely pauses before taking Wolf to her.

 

-

 

She dismisses the guards and healers, leans back against the wall to watch him. Beside the unconscious Qunari he looks small, delicate. He lifts the woman’s marked hand, which is large enough to engulf his face let alone his neck and-

 

They lost so much at the Conclave, not least Justinia and Leliana-

 

Leliana wants very much to hope.

 

“Will she live?”

 

Wolf pauses, one hand over the mark. Magic flickers between them, yellow and green.

 

“I believe so.”

 

So they may at least gain an idea of what happened in the Temple of Sacred Ashes-

 

She tries not to think of the desecration of Andraste’s resting place.

 

“Do you know what caused this?” She asks finally and Wolf pauses again.

 

“I fear I may.”

 

He is silent for some time. The Qunari makes a small, wet sound as though she doesn’t quite have the strength to cough.

 

“It could be done,” He says finally. “Using an artifact the People created for the worship of their gods.”

 

He has not looked at her and there is something about the tension in his shoulders the tone of his voice-

 

Something like guilt.

 

She gives him time to continue and when he doesn’t she speaks.

 

“After you left I spent some time reading about the Ancient Elves. It became something of a hobby.”

 

She pauses but he doesn’t speak so-

 

“Fen-”

 

“Please,” He interrupts. “Don’t.”

 

She doesn’t.

 

She watches as his shoulders tense further, he takes a deep breath.

 

“Yes,” He says finally. “It was mine. But I _did not do this_.”

 

“Do you know who-” She begins.

 

“No.” He states, his voice sour.

 

Then he sighs. “I’m sorry. I should have- I should have attempted to reclaim it. But I was too weak to truly use its power and so I thought-”

 

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

 

“Could this artifact be traced?”

 

“No.” He murmurs.

 

She thinks about the people outside, _her_ people. There’s a hole torn in the sky and the world is suddenly filled with demons and-

 

“The mark she bears,” Wolf says finally. “It can be used to close these breaches into the Fade.”

 

So they may at least undo some of the damage, though it will not bring back those already lost. Their best chance for peace has burned to the ground. The countryside is awash with rogue Templars and mages, she doubts they will pause to think about the masses before beginning their conflict anew. The Divine is dead. All those who could easily replace her are dead. And Leliana-

 

Leliana doesn’t know what to do.

 

She wishes, suddenly, for Kallian’s confidence and clarity. But they searched for the Bann of Denerim and found nothing.

 

“Are you angry?” Wolf asks, in a whisper.

 

She remembers how he fought, futilely, for the Casteless of Orzammar and thinks of the refugees scattered in the Hinterlands, suffering because of all this.

 

“I know you didn’t…cause this.” Leliana says finally.

 

“But you are angry.”

 

She sighs. “You vanished. For ten years.”

 

“And-” He says haltingly, as if the idea is difficult for him to grasp. “That is a long time?”

 

“ _Yes._ ”

 

“Ah.”

 

He places the Qunari’s hand on the floor, gently and shifts so that he can direct the steady stream of magic to her head more easily. The marked woman gives another weak, watery cough.

 

“I am sorry.” Wolf murmurs and Leliana sighs again.

 

“I know.”

 

“The People.” He says, as if that’s an explanation in and of itself. “I- I failed them. Profoundly.”

 

“You never wondered, in all the time we were traveling, where the Elves were?”

 

He raises one shoulder, half a shrug. “I assumed they were to the north in Arlathan.”

 

“Oh.”

 

She wishes he hadn’t come now when she can practically feel the world falling to chaos around her, when she knows that the coming months will be soaked in innocent blood, when one of her dearest friends has just been murdered. And yet-

 

There’s an unexpected comfort in his presence. Like the single rose on it’s twisted, dead, stem in the middle of the Blight. The Maker has taken Justinia from her and it _hurts_ with a depth and fervour she has never felt before. And the Maker has guided Wolf back to her.

 

It is easier to think that if she thinks of him as ‘Wolf’ rather than ‘Solas’ or-

 

Or his Elven name.

 

“I would stay,” He says suddenly. “And assist in correcting this…madness. If you would allow it.”

 

She nods once. “Yes. Thank you.”

 

“I missed you.” He admits.

 

She thinks about his hand on hers as they left Marjolaine’s house in Denerim, about his thoughtful silences and his unexpected smiles.

 

“I missed you as well.” She says finally.

 

He turns-

 

There is an…openness in his expression that would be inexcusable in the Game. Hope and hesitancy displayed too clearly. She thinks that he could have hidden…this or simply not looked-

 

And they have probably both seen people killed for smaller moments of honesty.

 

He ducks his head and turns back to the spell playing over the Qunari’s temples.

 

“You…may find me less agreeable now that we can properly understand each other.” He warns.

 

It makes her smile.

 

She thinks of Warden Tabris, of the Archdemon massive and terrible-

 

Of the Deep Roads and the Dalish and the hordes of Darkspawn. Of stolen moments on marches or around campfires and the hundred impossible things they have already done.

 

Leliana pushes herself away from the wall. He stiffens as she approaches and when she puts a hand on his shoulder the tension eases away.

 

“Well,” She murmurs eventually. “We shall have to find out.”

 


End file.
